Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
“Keeping Quiet”, Pablo Neruda
Performance - Installation Resignation was a processual 4h long work about life’s timely bodily experience where the indissoluble bond between a human and nature is revealed. It invited us together to devote ourselves to the ordinance of movement and time thus creating a space for imagination, where to reconsider the presence and to contemplate the possible sceneries of the future. The work was the artists’ personal response to the present time, where the desire to retreat and not to participate in the activities, which might generate aggression, was being expressed, instead inviting everybody to fall asleep. The work was a personal protest of silence expressed not only by the author but by the whole creative team. Audience could enter and leave the performance whenever they chose to, although the creators of the work invited the audience to surrender to the work’s slow pace and to live this experience from the beginning till the end.
“Overall it is about the state which is familiar and natural, therefore, I think, the watching can become a bodily experience quite quickly. At one stage I strongly felt that this work is about humanity. Developing a quality of movement in my body, which is the base of this work, I perceive that part in me is an organism. In the human body you can find several similarities with other phenomena occurring in the nature, for example, crumbling mountain range or ice floating in the ocean. There is identical part of the organism for every human being. This is the unifying element. In this work you can experience liberation from the hurry and striving, as well as the fact that everything is temporary, also a human being. The work is all-embracing and transcendental, at the same time it's ascetic and very simple. / Agnese /
“Observing how quickly my daughter grows, I realised how quickly I’m dying or coming closer to the death by aging. The death will come inevitably. But it will come sooner than I would be able to realise it. How am I using this remaining indeterminate time? What shall I do with it? How to approach the death doing as less harm as possible? Considering those questions I returned to the initial realization – it’s time to go to sleep for everybody giving time to the world and ourselves to recover. It’s said for a reason that if something seems wrong, return to the point zero and start it all again. Aggression facilitates aggression and hatred increases hatred. Sleeping is something that unites as all and we all know how to do it. To leave aside protests, slogans, promises, guns, fights for the peace. “Retreat” is about this utopia, when humanity has gone to sleep, giving a space for the nature and its processes, involving us as a part of it and allowing a human being to be weak, tired and helpless. To admit that you are tired and you cannot is revealing.” / Kristīne /
“Our morning conversation about humanity. It’s beautiful to talk about that, and the subject is deep enough to convert it into piece of art by tools of art. About compassion, about humanity, about being a human. Wide space to think about. I don’t need and I don’t want a story and chapters to watch this work.”/ Ina /
Author, Choreographer: Kristīne Brīniņa
Dramaturg: Agnese Bordjukova, Tobias Drēgers, Kristīne Brīniņa
Performers: Agnese Bordjukova, Klāvs Liepiņš, Vilnis Bīriņš, Alise Madara Bokaldere, Inga Feldmane, Linda Bodniece, Elza Rauza, Jūlija Jansone, Terēze Vīksne, Agnese Virovska, Toms Ceļmillers.
Sound artist: Maksims Šenteļevs
Scenographer/ Designer: EPP KUBU
Lighting artist: Edgars Karlsons
Producer: Ina Ločmele un biedrība “Horeogrāfu asociācija”